This story is told by a person incarcerated in Chino.
UCI: So what has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: At our facility, it impacted the facility real rough.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And rapid paced, as of January and December, well, December through January is our roughest months, because it came to our dormitory where we were there and they cross contaminated people. And it became very scary in here to the point where out of negative results, 150 people just got it within hours. And next thing we know it stopped our programs for our school, GED, our working workshops, laundry, cooking, program office workers, clerk workers, and students who are trying to get their GED. They also stopped our program SAP which help us get reentry back – also stopped SAP which help us get back into a reentry program in society.
Nextly, the COVID pandemic just stopped everything for us in here, like, there is no social distancing, it’s very bad in here, and it just keeps going and going. They basically stopped our milestones to help us get time knocked off for us that’s nonviolent offenders at a level one institution. We’re supposed to get a lot of programming credits, rack credits, milestones, but we can’t do it ’cause of corona.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: They put a big stop on everything. Like we can’t go to chow hall no more, we can’t just go to a regular doctor’s appointment, we can’t get visits from our family, the only thing we got going right now is the letters that came from y’all, these phone calls and that’s it. So, we’re basically on pause with our families too, because some of us, like me, I lost my son last year, September [redacted], and now I can’t even get a visit by my kids due to corona. It’s hard, like, it’s been a bad, bad stop on everything.
